Don’t look back. Don’t look back.
Ethan, teeth clenched, stared stubbornly ahead. His father, who had already turned to look back, asked:
“Who’s that woman?”
“The duke’s daughter.”
“Ah.”
In that short exclamation, understanding and questions mixed. One of them, his father voiced:
“She’s the one who betrayed you. So why is she waiting?”
Ethan was curious too. Though he thought he knew the reason.
“That old man—they say when he heard the news of your release today, he nearly kicked the bucket. He’s in the hospital now, hanging between life and death. So the right of succession will soon pass to the eldest son. What about taking her right now?”
“She abandoned me and sided with her father. Now that her father is dying and she has no one left to lean on, she’s trying to cling to me again.”
“Hmm, Ethan. I understand you can’t stand the sight of her, but think clearly. Taking that woman is the easiest way to get Kentrell, isn’t it?”
“That’s the plan. When the time comes.”
He knew. No matter how much he hated her, taking Eve right now was the smartest move.
But if he faced Eve now, he was afraid he’d turn back into that fool from the past. One teardrop from her, and his finely honed thirst for revenge would surely dull and rust.
Don’t look back. Don’t look back.
In his eyes, fixed forward, tears welled up along with blood.
Ethan Fairchild had promised.
He wouldn’t put Eve in a cage—he would fly high with her.
That’s why he had begged her not to fly away from him.
Love had ended, like that radiant summer. Eve had been abandoned.
As always. Her mother, her father, and now her lover. Eve was no one’s first choice.
A merciless, biting wind pierced the heart of the woman standing on the cliff. Carrying away the tears she shed for her own foolishness.
She cried herself out, cursing the man who could no longer hear her. Emptying her soul, the woman returned to the cage on her own.
Her dragging but unstoppable steps faltered when her vision swam and her stomach turned.
The reason she felt seasick standing on solid ground—something local children outgrew by age three—could only be one thing.
Eve vomited under the exotic garden tree her father prized so dearly. Today, for some reason, it felt like she’d swallowed a razor blade—her throat burned so much. The moment her flickering, fading vision cleared, she saw bright red blood mixed with stomach acid. Eve’s heart stopped.
“Miss! Where did you disappear to?”
As she trembled alone in fear, someone called her from afar and ran toward her. Fortunately, it was Chantal.
“Oh my god, you need to lie down… Oh…”
Chantal, looking at what Eve had thrown up, frowned—then her eyes widened.
“Miss… could it be…”
Chantal caught her. That was for the best. Eve, completely drained, grabbed onto her last remaining support and begged:
“The baby… save the baby.”
The man had flown away alone. The woman remained in the cage with the child he had left behind.
Such was the banal end of young love that had nothing but recklessness.
Love ended, but life didn’t stop.
Her father stubbornly clung to life, but due to a stroke, he could no longer move or speak. His consciousness seemed still clear, but a tyrant stripped of movement and speech was just a tiger without fangs.
Thanks to that, Eve gained freedom—but she had nowhere to go. She locked herself in the house and threw herself into work. Now, besides her, there was no one to take care of the family in place of her father, who had become a living corpse.
Transforming from someone who only spent money to someone who controlled all expenses was quite a headache. And that very headache, which kept her from thinking about anything else, was exactly what Eve needed.
Thus, immersing herself in the family’s financial affairs, she lived until the end of autumn. One day, Dr. Callas examined her and seriously suggested:
“Lady, if you give birth here, it will be absolutely impossible to avoid rumors. How about you go abroad for what looks like a vacation before your belly becomes noticeable, give birth there, and then return?”
It was a topic she could no longer avoid under the pretext of being busy. He was right, and she decided to do just that.
She thought of the Kentrell family’s overseas villas, but immediately dismissed the thought. That would also leave evidence that the Duke of Kentrell’s daughter had given birth to an illegitimate child.
She needed to go somewhere completely unconnected to the family.
Chantal kindly offered her family home, saying her mother and grandmother were midwives and could care for Eve.
Thus, Eve ended up in Lavinia—on the soil where she had conceived the child, only to part with it there.
Chantal’s hometown turned out to be a small mountain village. The pastoral scenery reminded her of Montfleure. The happy moments spent there—which she had tried so hard to bury forever under the weight of work—came alive and washed over Eve.
“I’ll protect you—both you and our child.”
“We’re husband and wife.”
“Good morning, Lady Fairchild.”
Sweet words, eyes filled with even sweeter love, and vows of eternity.
If it had all been a lie, she could have shaken it off—but she knew that in that moment, Ethan had been completely sincere, and that was why she clung to the past even more.
We could have continued living just like that. This child could have been born blessed and raised in love.
The happiness—whose eternity she had not doubted then—had been stolen in an instant. By her father’s hand—the robber who had been stealing from her her whole life—and by the hand of the man who had given her that happiness in the first place.
If only it had been a dream.
Every day she fell asleep, foolishly praying that when she opened her eyes, she would return to the day she fell in love with Ethan. But day by day, the weight of reality grew heavier, and Eve’s soul with it.
The child grew, sucking the life force out of the mother. Each time she felt the child’s movements, proving it was alive, the reckless and immature nineteen-year-old Evelyn Sherwood slowly died.
The time when she had to die to save one life ended on a May day so dazzlingly beautiful that it felt lonely.
“You’ve suffered so much. The baby is a little small, but he looks healthy.”
Chantal’s mother, who had delivered the baby, didn’t hand him to Eve. Eve didn’t try to take him. Whatever feelings it might stir, she couldn’t handle it. The burden pressing down on her was gone, but her chest still clenched.
At conception, he had been a child of love—but not anymore. Seeing with your own eyes the price paid for believing in love wasn’t the most pleasant task.
I feel sorry for the child. But he’ll never know his biological mother’s remorse—or even her existence.
“It’s a boy! Thank you, miss.”
Since the woman who would become his mother was so happy for him, it seemed the child’s future was nothing to worry about.
“Oh… a blonde. Well, I’ll say his hair color takes after me. His eyes… blue. Phew, that’s a relief. But it’s good that his face is the spitting image of you, miss.”
It was unclear why she was glad that the child she would raise as her own looked like another woman.
Either way, Eve didn’t care who the child resembled. That man probably wouldn’t care anymore either.
Because he would grow up as someone else’s child.
While Eve was hiding here, it turned out Chantal had married Dr. Callas. They seemed to have overcome all objections.
Eve didn’t want to abandon the child in just any orphanage. She asked the doctor to find a decent family, but he and Chantal volunteered to adopt him themselves. Saying he would never know he was adopted, Chantal had even walked around Cliffhaven with a pillow under her dress.
They’re trying so hard for me.
She was very grateful, but at the same time, she couldn’t believe it. She had lived believing that there were no people in the world who gave something selflessly—that behind every kindness was a price.
But they both refused money for raising the child. However, Eve’s conscience wouldn’t let her thank them with only words. She would feel better only if she generously rewarded them with what her family had—whether wealth or power.
Eve thought that once she returned to White Cliff Hall, she would make her father a puppet and seize control of the family. Her father was still the duke—so who would dare object if his daughter acted in his name?
Her father might have wanted to object, but he didn’t have the strength—nor the strength to produce another heir to push Eve out.
So the family was practically in Eve’s hands.
But contrary to her wish, she couldn’t return immediately. Eve needed to recover, and the baby was too weak for a long journey.
Because of this, while she was confined to that small farmhouse, separated from him by only a wall, the baby’s increasingly strong cries tore her soul apart day by day. In the end, she couldn’t take it anymore and hurried them along. A month after the baby’s birth, the three of them returned to Cliffhaven.
They got into the car Dr. Callas had arranged and drove from the port to the cliff. The mansion came into view. The moment to part with the child had come.
I’m sorry. Be happy.
This time, Eve looked directly into the eyes of the child in Chantal’s arms and said goodbye in her heart.
The car stopped in front of the mansion’s main entrance. The butler opened the door and politely offered her his hand. Eve got out of the car, receiving the servants’ greetings—and froze.
“Chantal?”
Why were you getting out too? And with the baby.
She understood the reason when the butler bowed respectfully to Chantal.
“Duchess, fortunately, you have returned safely with the young master.”
Chantal Garnier had become the Duchess of Kentrell. While Eve was away.
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